The Sunny Side of Truth

The American Legacy Foundation is providing a Sunny Side for their Truth Campaign against the tobacco industry with five live action/animated television commercials: “Magical Amount”, “Typo”, “Nobody Knows”, “Tough Love” and “Stork”. The campaign, launched in January 2008, and rolled out online at www.truth.com, attempts to put a happy spin on a bummer of a situation.

The campaign aims to shine a light on some of the activities of Big Tobacco and the health consequences of tobacco use by satirically pointing out some of the “hidden positives” associated with tobacco. The reality is that there are no positives to tobacco use. Each television spot in the Sunny Side campaign features young people who, after considering a tobacco fact and the “sunny side” of Big Tobacco, break out into a live singing and-dancing musical number, accompanied by cartoon images. Despite the musical diversion, the ads all deliver a strong anti-tobacco message or illuminate facts about tobacco.

Magical Amount

Too much nicotine might make you sick not enough you might quit and walk away
Looks like they’ve got the right amount to keep those smokers smoking all the live long day

They know the magical amount enough to really hook ya
The magical amount but not enough to hurt

But nicotine addicts ya but that won’t kill ya folks
Leave that to the arsenic and all their chemicals in your smokes

The magical amount not enough to hurt ya
The magical amount will get you nice and hooked
Not enough to lay you out but just enough to count,
The magical amount.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube

Stork

A Truth campaigner tells his audience that a tobacco company executive in the 1970s responded to concerns about babies being born underweight with the suggestion that some women would prefer to have smaller children. Well that’s good news for the poor animated stork!

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube

Typo

Two campaigners look at the statistics relating to tobacco-related deaths and wonder if they’re being too negative. Perhaps it’s a typo!

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube

Nobody Knows

Nobody knows what you might do if couldn’t smoke, according to a tobacco company executive quoted by the New York Times in 1998. That’s a Sunny Side challenge for two women and their animated colleagues.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube

Tough Love

Two campaigners prepare a table of deadly chemicals for a public demonstration. Maybe they’ve got it all wrong and the tobacco companies are giving people ‘tough love’!

Music was composed by David Yazbek. The music was made available for download on the Truth web site, with remixes of the songs by Cobra Starship, Kenny Dope, Mix Master Mike, and Kaskade. Truth invited fans to create their own “re-mixed” versions of songs from the campaign in a contest hosted on the popular music community imeem.com

Stay Inspired

What is The Inspiration Room?

A global effort designed to influence, affect and involve creative communities in the development of a world standard for inspiration, particularly in the fields of advertising, design and film. More »